Are you a zombie at work?

Do you go in to work grudgingly, feeling under-engaged and unenthusiastic? Well, that’s a problem from the front-line to the CEO — and it’s one that you can keep from happening with just a few simple steps.

Engagement is the interaction between feeling fully committed to their employment future, and the things you do every day at work. Here at MAP, we tell our people all the time, “We must all work hard, to help everyone achieve.” We want our employees to understand our business strategy, and to help make the vision a reality. We’re a team. Together, we can accomplish mighty things.

How often do you talk to individual employees and ask “What’s your vision of the future? What do you want in life? What are your personal goals and achievements?” If we don’t know, then we can’t help out employees achieve their ambitions and succeed.

Further, your organization’s development plans need to take those personal objectives into account. When an employee thinks you’re helping them and they’re helping you, real engagement happens. Develop your employee’s dreams, and those employees will work and fight hard for the company – their company.

Why would an individual be engaged if they don’t know what the company wants from them? As a business leader, you have an obligation; engagement is mutual, and can only be achieved with continual, honest communication on both sides.

Engagement isn’t about foosball tables, tanning beds, or free lunches. It’s about discovering and developing the talents of people who want to know how they win; how they can be successful. They need goals they can achieve and feel good about. Employees need to understand how their day-to-day work impacts company strategy. They need to understand the direction and the finish line.

Employee development is a huge factor in engagement. How is your company helping employees to grow and succeed? How are you advancing them in their dreams, and supporting their ideals? At their heart, people want to know what’s in it for them, and how they, too, can achieve money, purpose, and personal development. If they know you’re helping them win, you’re engaging them in a bigger context – life.

And when you give your employees life, they aren’t zombies anymore!